Do you remember how exciting Christmas was when you were a child? The lead up into the great feast of the Nativity was almost too much to bear. We sang advent hymns at church; we colored candy canes and cut out snowflakes at school; we decorated the Christmas tree and set up the crèche at home. Every week the anticipation grew as one more candle was lit. By Christmas Eve, I was ready to burst from the thrill. I still get excited, you know. It’s so much fun! Who doesn’t enjoy it? Okay, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Jews, atheists, etc. But the world is fascinated by Christmas and celebrates with vigor.
But what does the world celebrate? Is Christmas the time when we buy nice things for family and friends, and give to mere acquaintances the dreaded fruitcake? (Mind you that doesn’t include the excellent Trappist fruitcakes.) Is it a celebration of capitalism in process: consumers “getting and spending” as we lay waste our financial powers? Is it the observance of retail stores making the year end profits (or not)? Is Christmas a time, as suggested by the American Humanist Association to, “Just be good for goodness’ sake”?
“Why believe in a god. Just be good for goodness’ sake.” This is what the world has come to. We shouldn’t be surprised that the world doesn’t recognize the true meaning of Christmas. Why not? Because long ago, on the first Christmas, the world lay asleep while Jesus was born. When Christ came into the world, the world did not recognize him. As the Word become flesh first revealed his sacred face, his own did not receive him.
This is the Christmas story that St. John tells us in today’s Gospel. The Church, however, has not lost sight of the reason for the season. We remember the Mystery of Christmas — the Word become flesh. We remind the world of it, because the world missed the first Christmas and did not recognize or receive Christ. Still, each Christmas the world misses Christ.
THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS — INCARNATION
This Mystery of Christmas, “the Word became flesh,” the Incarnation, what is it? Why was it necessary? “He [the Logos], indeed, when man fell, might have remained in the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. But that unsearchable Love, which showed itself in our original creation, rested not content with a frustrated work, but brought Him down again from His Father’s bosom to do His will and repair the evil which sin had caused. And with a wonderful condescension He came, not as before in power, but in weakness, in the form of a servant, in the likeness of that fallen creature whom He purposed to restore,” thus wrote John Henry Newman (pp. 246–47). God, who had made man in His own image and likeness, now became man and took on the likeness of what He created. He was without sin but subject to temptation; He came in weakness but not sharing our guiltiness. He assumed our guilt to Himself, but was not an inheritor of it. He had power to lay down his life and power to take it up again; and no one could wrest that power from him.
God took on our likeness, to restore it to His own once more. “Through [God’s own glory and goodness] he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Pe. 1:4). Jesus Christ humbled himself to share in our humanity, so that we could display the divine image. And what is that image? If you want to see what God is like, look at Jesus. “The son is the radiance of the Father’s glory and the exact representation of His Being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3).
This restoration was not within our power. William Barclay gives the example: “A commoner cannot approach a king with the offer of friendship; if there is ever to be such a friendship it must depend entirely on the approach of the king” (Barclay, 62). So the Word became flesh. The Word, which is God all-powerful, became flesh. kai o logoς sarx ἐgeneto. Flesh, sarx, is the same word that is sometimes translated “sinful nature.” Listen to John’s force. The Word, God most holy, became flesh, took on our weakened nature. “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature (sarx, flesh), God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful nature to be a sin offering” (Rom. 8:3). “God made him who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
O wonderful gift of Christmas! Look at the child Jesus and behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. See the innocent, weak child and see the perfect Son of God now made flesh. See the sinless one, and now see him assuming our sinfulness.
God didn’t send an angel, prophet, or any intermediary to save us. He didn’t send us a self-help book (an e-book, if you will). He didn’t walk us through the procedure over his cell phone. No.
The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due. From the west, men will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along. ‘The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,’ declares the LORD” (Is. 59:15b–20).
That is Immanuel, “God with us.” Do you see the manger and the babe? Don’t be fooled for one moment. Those tiny feet are the same that will crush the serpent’s head.
Jesus is the Word, is God become flesh. Jesus is not some cuddly infant, handsome man, hanging corpse, or resurrected man. He is more! Jesus is God. Saints, do you hear me? The son of Mary is God and man. The “holy infant so tender and mild” is the same Jesus who “will come again with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then shall repay everyone according to what he has done” (Mt. 16:27). See the poor, homeless infant in Bethlehem, and see one mightier than George Bush, Barack Obama, Churchill, Napoleon, Genghis Kahn, or Caesar. That babe wrapped in swaddling clothes—can you remember this—He is not just a friend, a cohort, and a buddy. He is Immanuel, God with us. Think of it. God with us! Can you remember that as you look down at the manger? Can you call it to mind as you hear the Sermon on the Mount and as you watch the feeding of the 5,000? Can you remember it as you start up at the cross on Calvary?
It’s easy to let this fall aside to the right or to the left. But the Church insists on not falling to either side. We cannot say that Jesus is just man. Nor can we say He is only God. Never! We proclaim the Mystery of Christmas, that God became man. “God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world; Perfect God and perfect man. … One [person] not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God” (Athanasian Creed). The Word became flesh: the Eternal entered the temporal, the Omnipotent put on these mortal coils that we so soon shuffle off, the Son of God became the Son of Man. “The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.”
THE MYSTERY MISSED — WORLD NEITHER RECOGNIZES NOR RECEIVES CHRIST
How much have you heard the Mystery of Christmas, the Incarnation, proclaimed this year? How many times have you heard it outside the walls of the Church? The world has forgotten that its God has drawn nigh. The world has demythologized Jesus. It has cast him as a good man, a pithy teacher, a nice ethicist, perhaps even an excellent New-Agey healer. But the world does not have a God-man. The Deity is “out there”; He is somewhere else. Saints, God is out there, but He is very-much-more-nearer to you and me than our clothes, our skin, our inmost thoughts, and our very soul. He is close at hand, in Him we live and move and have our being.
Today Christ is missed, but how many people in Bethlehem had forgotten the Promise by the time of Christ’s birth? The other tribes of Israel had departed from the faith. Even the Jews lost faith and were sent into exile. God restored them, but after a few prophets, there was an absence of prophecy. Zechariah’s prophecy at the birth of his son, John, shattered the silence of four centuries.
And then, six months or so later, the shepherds saw the angels! How long did they remember seeing the Glory of the Lord, hearing the angelic song, and all that happened that night? And what of those who heard of these things? For, “when [the shepherds] had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them” (Lk. 2:17–18). Some must have gone to see Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus. How many remembered the Promise of the Savior?
All Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Judea forgot the amazing news told by the shepherds. Jesus grew up thirty years without drawing much notice. In his twelfth year, He amazed the teachers when He was at the temple. Perhaps a few even recalled his birth…oh, yeah, that boy! But for another two decades, he was obedient, and he “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Lk. 2:52).
Still all forgot the promise, the Mystery foretold. All let Christmas slip their minds, all except for Mary. She didn’t let one word, event, or promise escape, but “she treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk. 2:19). How long before the world forgets Christmas 2008? Stores are already pitching post-Christmas sales, New Years, and Superbowl savings. Christmas is yesterday’s news. It was yesterday’s news two days ago.
THE MYSTERY REGAINED — REMIND OURSELVES AND WORLD OF MYSTERY
So, are you still kneeling at the manger, adoring the Christ child? Have you beheld His glory? Have you ever witnessed the majesty, splendor, and the awesome power of God? Don’t forget it! You couldn’t forget it. Bishop Bates said, in his sermon at the House of Bishops we hosted, “I’ve forgotten more sermons that I’ve ever heard, more names than I’ve seen faces, but I have never forgotten a touch of God in my life.”
Have you seen His glory? I promise every one of you, that you have seen His glory. If you think that you haven’t, I assure you that you have. You may not have been paying attention, or may have been distracted or busy; you may have felt something and didn’t recognize it; you may have felt something and recognized it and run away. But you have seen His glory. Don’t forget it. Share it. Tell everyone that will listen. Be like Abraham. “Abraham believed God, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). Abraham did not forget the Promise. He held on to it. He told it to his children and grandchildren. He made it the center of all his life—present and future, even retrospectively into the past. The author of Hebrews tells us, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance” (Heb. 11:13). The promise to Abraham was the Mystery to be revealed, the Word of God incarnate.
Today’s collect speaks of the “new light.” Christ is that light, always new, and yet old, “ever ancient, ever new.” We prayed that the light of Christ be in our hearts. We have an interior private, personal life with the Light. But we must let that light shine forth in our lives. In this way, “men may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Mt. 5:16). If the light of Christ stops with you or me, do you know what that makes us? It makes us darkness. We can choose to be closed doors, barring the Light from reaching the world. Or we can be windows, nay, and much more lenses, which shine Christ and spread him onto this world. Brothers and sisters do not be darkness. Be light.
